A Gilded Planet

don't open e-mail from me about "beach photos"- it's "phishing" X Inbox X Reply from Barrie Thorne  [email address redacted]      to Mary Hatfield Henderson et al   [email address redacted] date Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 6:58 PM subject don't open e-mail from me about "beach photos"- it's "phishing" signed-by gmail.com Important mainly because it was sent directly to you. hide details   6:58 PM (20 hours ago) Dear folks on my gmail "contacts"list, Alas, I have somehow been hacked. If you get an email from me asking you to see some photos from the beach, DELETE IT.  If more mayhem occurs, I'll take appropriate action.  My apologies, Barrie -- Barrie Thorne Professor  of Gender & Women's Studies and  Professor of Sociology University of California, Berkeley

"...I experienced a series of highly visceral hallucinations. I felt as if I flew high above the jungle upside down. The trees, the banana palms, the noisy yet euphonic hum of insects, the replicative green - everywhere green - whirled around me with dizzying splendor...Jiminy Cricket served as our guide. He taught us the ways and protected us from the gravest dangers we may have encountered. Undoubtedly my view of the jungle has been permanently altered by meeting it under such tumultuous circumstances... "I had already seen the muddy river below my dangling feet. But now we got deep in the muck. Our captain fancied that he was a Jack Sparrow, he heard voices, he talked to himself and he led us down the current feet first. I was prepared to dunk my head in the drink, I was ready to drown. "The day had not yet ended and my venturesome delusions now took shape as avatars - tigers first, and then ultimately elephants. I feel no shame admitting that I am terrified of anyo...

All photo credit to my sister, Katherine Bruens : hey, look, that's me with a tiger

"...the [Chao Phraya] river bisects the city and feeds the many canals that cut through neighborhoods like so many veins and arteries...after getting on a long tail boat...[w]e sped down the river taking in views of the city. It's a truly splendorous way to travel. "Our first stop was Wat Arun. An ornate Buddhist temple stippled by statues of cows and Gods from the Hindu pantheon, Wat Arun dares one to tumble down its pyramidal step formations. Near the end of our explorations of the vertiginous structure, I glimpsed a Buddhist monk working as a clerk behind the counter of the Wat Arun gift shop. This image inhabited me with a bemused sense of sweaty irony. I find it fatuously unsettling how easily Buddhism has taken to the highly commercial culture of modernity. "The long tail boat than took us into a labyrinthine latticework of canals innervating Thai neighborhoods that alternate seemingly at random between wooden shantytowns and opulent villas...we stopped at a ...

"My uncle lives on the outskirts of Bangkok. I slept the hot, humid night away without a blanket. When I woke up, I went outside into the morning drizzle. While I observed the orchids, the drizzle turned into a downpour. I sat on the covered porch to watch the hard rain drench the tropical plants. A few peals of thunder anointed the day... "A shirtless Thai man ran down the street in the rain. He got into a van and revved the engine for several minutes. The sound of gunshot echoed through the neighborhood. The van had backfired. Just then, the rain stopped, as suddenly as it started."